Category Archives: Something Good

1. Quote from Rabbi Yehuda HaChasid, “I will build an altar from the broken fragments of my heart,” (by way of Jena Schwartz‘s Dispatches from Daily Life.)

2. Wisdom from Francis Weller, “The task of a mature human being is to hold gratitude in one hand and grief in the other and to be stretched large by them,” by way of Erin Geesaman Rabke‘s newsletter. Erin also included a poem from Mark Nepo and these lines really touched me,

I guess, if you should ask, peace
is no more than the underside
of tired wings resting on the lake
while the heart in its feathers
pounds softer and softer.

10. Wild Writing Family, a Wild Writing membership with Laurie Wagner. In all sincerity and seriousness, this practice with this teacher has had as much of an impact on my life as meditation, yoga, and my dogs, is as essential to me as air or water.

Eventually, doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait, despite the futility of hope, for a cure for racism. We will live with the knowledge that a hashtag is not a vaccine for white supremacy. We live with the knowledge that, still, no one is coming to save us. The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free.

15. A Weekend of Pain and Protest from The Daily podcast on The New York Times. “Demonstrations have erupted in at least 140 cities across the United States in the days since George Floyd, a black man, died in police custody in Minneapolis. We were on the ground in some of them, chronicling 72 hours of pain and protest.”

16. In Some Cities, Police Officers Joined Protesters Marching Against Brutality. I appreciate the Flint officers who took off their helmets and put down their batons rather than spraying mace, shooting rubber bullets, etc., instead marching with the people, but I also think it was wrong of Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson to say, “let’s turn this protest into a parade” because it is dismissive of the ongoing pain, grief, rage, and harm. Nothing about this is fun. It’s not a party or celebration. There is something absolutely worth protesting, raging against. I also feel weird about the officers taking a knee. I think they intend to show (or rather perform) solidarity with Colin Kaepernick’s protest, but to take a knee when this current surge of protests was triggered by one of their own taking a knee on George Floyd’s neck, it’s tone deaf at best.

17. How to more safely protest in a pandemic. “Tips for reducing the risk of spreading the coronavirus in a mass gathering, from public health experts.” It’s been scary to watch some of the video, people shaking hands and hugging, so close together, many of them not wearing masks.

One of yoga’s central teachings is that everything changes. This material world of prakṛti is impermanent and always changing (pariṇāmavāda) and we suffer when we remain attached to the way things were. So, it is important for us as yoga practitioners to question our attachment to how we used to live our lives, our aversion to some of the things we may continue to have to do to mitigate the risk of coronavirus transmission, and our fear of the unknown.

May this work be done in a spirit of generosity
not driven by ego, greed, or delusion.
May kindness sustain us and prevail in conflict, and compassion guide us and lead us to understanding.
May we rejoice in the successes of others,
and remain unmoved by praise or blame.

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2. Ethical Alternatives to Amazon, “the most lovingly curated selection of Amazon and Prime alternatives anywhere. We aim to make giving up Amazon easy and to encourage more people to spend their money with businesses that have higher ethical standards.”

8. Emergency Room Diary (video). “Dr. Craig Spencer fought Ebola in West Africa while working with Doctors Without Borders, and now he’s an emergency room doctor in New York City, at the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. This is a day in his life on the front line of the battle against COVID-19.”

12. Remembering the Nearly 100,000 Lives Lost to Coronavirus in America on The New York Times. “America is fast approaching a grim milestone in the coronavirus outbreak — each figure here represents one of the nearly 100,000 lives lost so far. But a count reveals only so much. Memories, gathered from obituaries across the country, help us to reckon with what was lost.”

I’d love it if you’d join me on Instagram or Facebook and post photos of your treasures, your trinkets, your tools and your talismans with a story (or a story in pictures) about your time sheltering in place and use #chroniclesoftoolsandtalismans

What things/actions/activities are helping you through your days? Who are the people that you’re finding yourself reaching out to again and again? What are you making these days? Are you feeling frozen around making anything? Are you cleaning your closets and organizing your shoes, or slothing on the back porch with a book? What are the things that are making you catch your breath? What’s helping you exhale? What helps you stay focused (even briefly) or how are you un-focusing?

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1. Wild Writing Family with my dear friend and beloved teacher Laurie Wagner. “Over the course of our time together you will deepen your writing practice, becoming a better writer – someone who is more free on the page, and who is grounded in the sound of their own voice. You’ll be tethered to a practice that invites you to unmask yourself, tell the truth about your experiences – how you feel and what you’re longing for. Your Wild Writing pieces may get turned into poems, essays or blog posts – pieces you can share with your community. You’ll receive over 10 poems a month, you’ll get real time with me, as well as stay connected to our rich Wild Writing Facebook group.”

8. Ten practices for the liminal space. “How do we stay in this waiting place, when there is still so much we don’t know about what’s on the other side? How do we maintain our sense of well-being and not spiral into despair and fear when we don’t yet know when we can see our loved ones, gather with our communities, or send our kids back to school? Here are some of my thoughts about ways to sustain ourselves in the midst of liminal space.”

…while people – including celebrities – can do whatever they want with their bodies, their choices have meaning and consequences. And choosing to participate in intentional weight loss, or to celebrate weight loss of any kind, supports weight stigma and perpetuates eating disorders by promoting the idea that a thin(ner) body is a better/more attractive/healthier body, which is at the root of fatphobia.

8. Castle Rock restaurant reopens to Mother’s Day crowds in defiance of statewide public health order. This is TERRIFYING. You hear how “we are all in this together” or “this virus is the great equalizer,” when clearly that’s not the case. There are both economic disparities and racial divides that mean some people are suffering more, have lost more, and are at more risk. This restaurant opening against orders, the people flooding in, smushed in there together with no one wearing masks, makes me realize we are experiencing this in very different ways, and there’s a large number of people who don’t take it seriously at all, some who even think it’s a hoax or that we are overreacting, that it is “just like the flu” and that the risk to them is small. This is what willful ignorance looks like, and sadly these people aren’t just harming themselves. The choices we all make have consequences, and some outcomes cause harm to others, even as those others are doing everything they can to manage their risk. Either you are helping or harming, and it’s clear the choice these people made. I suppose they most likely watched and believed this: Seen ‘Plandemic’? We Take A Close Look At The Viral Conspiracy Video’s Claims. They should have read this instead: The Risks – Know Them – Avoid Them.

12. How ‘Anticipatory Grief’ May Show Up During the COVID-19 Outbreak. “There’s a lot to be grieving right now with the recent COVID-19 outbreak. There’s a collective loss of normalcy, and for many of us, we’ve lost a sense of connection, routine, and certainty about the future. Some of us have already lost jobs and even loved ones. And most, if not all of us, have a lingering sense that more loss is still to come. That sense of fearful anticipation is called ‘anticipatory grief,’ and it can be a doozy.”

25. Susan Piver: Buddhist Wisdom to Meet the Challenge of the Pandemic on Economics & Beyond with Rob Johnson podcast. “Susan Piver—a writer on meditation and Buddhist teachings and founder of the Open Heart Project—talks to Rob about how Buddhist ideas of being grounded in the present can help us get through the uncertain times of this pandemic.”

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1. Poetry & Writing Archive at OnBeing. “Poetry rises up in human societies when official words fail us and we lose sight of how to find our way back to one another. It has moved to the heart of what we offer on the radio and in podcasts, in digital spaces, and in gatherings.”

5. Mapping Our Social Change Roles in Times of Crisis. “Identifying the right actions in times of crisis requires reflection, and it’s in that spirit that I’m offering a new version of a mapping exercise that helps us identify our roles in a social change ecosystem…This exercise can especially be helpful to re-align ourselves when we feel lost, confused, and uncertain in order to bring our fullest selves to the causes and movements that matter to us.”

10. Wisdom from a recent newsletter from Jenna Hollenstein, “In the Buddhist sense, however, the word discipline has a completely different connotation. It is not about overriding our desires or rigidly applying rules despite changing conditions…True discipline is about coming back to the present moment. Again and again and again…Whenever we find ourselves lost in our anxious or controlling minds, ruminating on obsessive thoughts, criticizing our non-compliant bodies – we notice, we come back, we consult our present-moment bodies, asking ‘What am I feeling? What do I need right now?'”

7. Yoga with Adriene’s May Practice Theme: Meditation. “If you have been wanting to add a regular meditation to your routine, this is your month. Throughout the month of May we will be focusing on seated and moving meditations that will ease stress and create equilibrium for positive mental, emotional, and physical health…Take time to sit quietly or let it be a moving meditation. This month’s free yoga calendar includes opportunities for both. Commit to exploring the practice this month and observe it unfold and grow.”

8. Sarah’s Rental Cottage, “DIY adventure of fixing up a remote 1950s island cottage on the open water of Georgian Bay before the sun set on summer.” Proof that painted hardwood floors aren’t always wrong.

16. Native American Heritage Association, “Native American families suffer from food insecurity and hunger daily. Two of the poorest counties in America are on the Crow Creek and Pine Ridge Reservations in South Dakota. NAHA, with the help of our generous donors, is committed to fighting hunger with emergency food supplies and basic life necessities.”

2. 27 Wildest Days video series with Laurie Wagner. FREE, with one of the best writing teachers, writers, and humans I know, offering one of the most powerful writing practices I know. “27 brand new videos that offer you a chance to create a daily writing practice on your own. Each day you’ll get a very short – under 10 minutes – video from me telling you something about Wild Writing, reading you a poem and giving you a couple of jump off lines. From there you will write on your own for 15 minutes. You don’t send me anything, it’s not a class, just a chance for you to lay it down and get real on the page.”

3. Do You Need a Ride? One of my favorite podcasts, one of the things I can trust to make me laugh, and they just released their first at-home quarantine edition. “Comedians Chris Fairbanks and Karen Kilgariff shuttle their guests to or from the airport, somewhat dangerously, in a mobile sound studio (a car).”

4. Four FREE online retreats with the Open Heart Project. “During this time of self-quarantine, the Open Heart Project will offer four free online meditation retreats, beginning April 25th. Each retreat will be from 9a-3p ET. The full day will be recorded for those who cannot attend live. Each retreat will be led by a different teacher who will also teach on a particular theme. We are really excited to be able to offer a chance to get together in community to practice meditation and discuss the spiritual path. We will take time out of our normal busy-ness to reconsider who we are, what is important, and how to re-center our highest priorities within everyday life.”

5. Righteous Babe Radio. From Ani DiFranco, “sharing the music of my brilliant friends and collaborators…nerding out on revered influences…amplifying the sounds and words of my political and cultural inspirations.”

6. A great set of questions to contemplate, from Jamie Ridler‘s most recent newsletter. “Whether our lives have changed dramatically or not much at all, we are moving in a different world, at least for a time. How do we move with it?…There is so much that is out of our control right now – but not everything. Every day there are moments of choice, moments to express our agency in this chaotic world.”

Who am I in this new day-to-day?
Who do I want to be?
What does my body need?
What does my heart need?
What is meaningful to me?
How can I find it here?
What am I mourning?
What do I hope to return to?
What do I hope to never return to?
How do I want to spend this time?

7. #NoBodyIsDisposable. “Disabled people, fat people, elders, and people with AIDS or other illnesses are being specifically targeted for denial of life-saving care during care rationing. These triage policies disproportionately target people of color, poor folks, immigrants, queer and trans folks, incarcerated and homeless folks, and others already considered disposable by capitalist, white supremacist society. We say NO!”

Writing this from the middle of the pandemic, it’s become clear that COVID-19 is the great clarifier. It clarifies what and who in your life matters, what things are needs and what are wants, who is thinking of others and who is thinking only of themselves. It has clarified that the workers dubbed “essential” are, in truth, treated as expendable, and it has made decades of systemic racism — and resultant vulnerability to the disease — indelible. It has highlighted the ineptitude of our current federal leadership, the dangers of longterm, cultivated mistrust of science, and the ramifications of allowing the production of medical equipment to be run like a business where profits matter above all else. Our medical system is broken. Our relief program is broken. Our testing capability is broken. America is broken, and we, too, along with it.

13. Of Real Life and New Normals on Rita’s Notebook. Because, this: “The only thing that feels sure to me is a future that is different from the past. Not in every way – but also, in every way. If I think of my life as a set of systems – work, home, health, money, relationships – the foundations remain the same (at least for now), but each of them is also so changed that it feels as if there can be no true going back to what they once were.”

In the beginning of this pandemic, I was very nervous about how long it’d take to get back to “normal” with business and the economy.

Now I’m thinking that I’m not so sure I want things to go back to economic normal. Let me explain: normal, for the most part with the global economy and big business has been kind of a burning dumpster fire. It’s been ruining our planet and tearing through finite resources, putting profit over people, and creating a vast chasm of a divide between those at the top and everyone else.

When you ask someone, generally, what they feel holds the most value for in their lives, most say things like: connection, family, friendship, community, etc. But if you look at how big business worked, it was money, power, fame, success, greed, etc, that dominated.

So what if we worked to better align ourselves, our actions, and our companies, to be closer to what we actually say is important?

We’ve prioritized gaining power over other people for too long. Maybe this pandemic can show us that there’s more power in being connected to and helping all people instead. Maybe once we recover and heal from this virus we can work to rebuild and heal a new economy with different values. Maybe I’m an idealist, but what if we put people first?

16. #MadeForThis. Tshirt available until April 22, “All profits from this campaign will go toward the start of a fund that will allow Whole / Self Liberation to offer micro-grants to support those dreaming up and cultivating new worlds (i.e. the helpers, healers, creatives, activists, educators) as they show up for their beautiful + necessary work.”

18. The Great Blah Blah from Laurie Wagner. Because, this: “Of course I write this from a warm home and a job. I have the luxury of contemplation. I don’t want for the suffering of others, of course I want the curve to flatten, but what I also want is to drop into the beauty of the moment, and to stop resisting what is happening.”

21. Poems for the Pandemic, “Here, you’ll find seven poems Stafford has written on seven days since March 7, accompanied by photographs and videos Brooke Herbert and Beth Nakamura have made in recent weeks as the novel coronavirus came to dominate our lives.”

22. The Daily, a meditation practice membership from Adreanna Limbach. “Just like clockwork, you’ll receive a DAILY 20 minute meditation video from from one of our core contributing teachers + thoughtful tips on how to integrate your practice into every nook and cranny of your life. Because we all know that insight develops through repetition and consistency is KEY. Practices are designed to be accessible to both newbie meditators, and long-time practitioners who are looking for ways to keep their practice fresh.”

The moral and civic renewal we need requires that we resist the anguished but misconceived debate now emerging about how many lives we should risk for the sake of restarting the economy…The real question is not when but what: What kind of economy will emerge from the crisis? Will it be one that continues to create inequalities that poison our politics and undermine any sense of national community? Or will it be one that honors the dignity of work, rewards contributions to the real economy, gives workers a meaningful voice and shares the risks of ill health and hard times?

We need to ask whether reopening the economy means going back to a system that, over the past four decades, pulled us apart, or whether we can emerge from this crisis with an economy that enables us to say, and to believe, that we are all in this together.

There’s been a lot of chat about a “new normal” but I prefer to look at this as a new RHYTHM. New normal makes it sound like things will never go back to how they were — and for some of us they may not, I absolutely acknowledge that — but for the majority things will return to what we had before. My hope is that we’ll choose to keep some of these new rhythms we’re creating. I’m finding new rhythms in this dance that are truly bringing me joy. And they’re simple things like discovering all the flowers in my neighbourhood. Juicing fruit and veg every day. Afternoon baths to reset my system. My renewed love of baked potatoes! Everything feels filled with so much more reverence as I do my best to sink into the acceptance of what is. This is my new rhythm and I know it will serve me long after this storm has passed. And it WILL pass.